


The Blue Door

by Vana



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Frottage, Hand Jobs, M/M, butt stuff, happy ending massage parlor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 11:09:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12725487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana
Summary: "You need to relax. Go to this address and tell them Sal sent you."Stannis has no choice but to comply with his colleagues' rude imposition, but he has no idea what awaits him when he walks through the Blue Door.





	The Blue Door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KretinaDivina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KretinaDivina/gifts).



_Get a massage_ , his colleagues said. _You’re too tense_.  _There’s this place that’s pretty famous, it will treat you right. Seriously, have you seen your shoulders, Stannis? They’re up to your ears and we haven’t even started the actual meetings yet. If you don’t come back to this conference tomorrow looking more relaxed,_ the men had said, _we are going to tell Robert you aren’t a team player._

The Blue Door, they said. Get on the 19 bus going north, disembark at Popinski’s bar — you can’t miss it, big neon sign — and then the Blue Door is across the street and down the stairs. There’s no sign. But you’ll know it by the blue door. The street address is “something like 485 1/2,” they said. Tell them Sal sent you, said one.

“Are you Sal?”

“No.” 

“Then who is?”

“Trust me, farm boy—” which was ridiculous, since Columbus, Ohio, was hardly a farm town— “just tell them.”

 

—

 

“This is ridiculous,” Stannis Baratheon said aloud, under his breath although he didn’t care who on the grungy, soda-sticky bus heard him. His stomach was in knots both because he had skipped dinner and because it just _was_ ; he was nervous, he was a stranger in a strange city and he was headed to a massage parlor in a neighborhood that was looking more disreputable with every passing block. And he was doing this on the basis of a threat that his coworkers would tell _Robert_ that he wasn’t a team player. Stannis’ hands clenched into fists around his briefcase and the plastic seat of the 19 bus. Of course Robert would believe them, too — Ned and Brandon and even decrepit old Jon Arryn. he’d listen to a bum off the streets, this very street in fact, before he would listen to his own brother and hear his side.

A massage didn’t sound so bad, anyway, Stannis rationalized. His ex-wife had loved them, considered them a bi-weekly ritual like her mani-pedis and visits with her personal shopper. His ex-girlfriend had _given_ them but Stannis had always declined her offers. He didn’t want to be touched — never had, never would. In lovemaking it was impossible to avoid and he did his duty by whatever unfortunate partner he had happened to have, but beyond that Stannis limited physical contact as much as he could. He wanted people to keep their distance. 

 _So why are you on this bus, heading to this place,_ a voice in the back of his head asked. He told that voice to shut its fool mouth. It sounded like Robert.

There it was, anyway — the bar. Popinski’s. Neon sign in the shape of a margarita glass. Stannis got off the bus, his feet sticking to the rubber steps. The vehicle squeaked like an old cat and slowly, painfully pulled away.

Across the street, there was a smattering of residences and businesses. A psychic, a pho restaurant — Stannis’ stomach growled at the aroma emanating from it — an apartment building with a broken call box, and underneath it, five steep, narrow steps leading down to a blue door. 865 1/2.

A couple of broken, tinny Christmas bells sounded when Stannis turned the knob and pushed open the door. Inside it was dim and dingy. What would he tell Ned now, though, he had come right inside and then left? The receptionist looked at him. She was from somewhere else: eastern Europe, northern Asia, somewhere like that with her flat bangs and equally flat expression. She waited, mutely.

“I’d like to book a massage,” Stannis said to her.

“Appointment?”

Russia, Mongolia, somewhere far north where those two meet, he judged by her accent. Uzbekistan? 

“No. Do you have anyone free now?”

“One moment.” She turned away to a closed door behind her, standing up. Her tiny black miniskirt rode nearly to the bottom of her buttocks and she tugged it down halfheartedly. 

“Oh,” Stannis remembered, “I’m supposed to tell you that Sal sent me.” 

The woman turned back abruptly, narrowed her black eyes at him, looked him up and down. _Who the hell is Sal?_

Then she nodded.

“Okay. You be with Davos. He’ll be here.” Her voice was clipped, but not quite as harsh as it had been. Where was she from anyway? Georgia? Kazakhstan? Stannis picked up a coverless magazine, which turned out to be a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue from 2000. He tossed it aside.

Davos, the receptionist had said. Was that foreign too? Russian? Swedish? Why did his mind keep gravitating toward maps? It had to be the work — geopolitical oil research could place you in that frame of mind, when it didn’t make you crazy with the politics. 

Midway through this reverie, the hallway door opened and Davos appeared. 

Stannis began to stand up, professional handshake at the ready, but stopped short. His masseur was wearing a snug, gray, v-neck t-shirt and leather pants, had a close-cropped salt-and-pepper beard and was looking Stannis over,  not at all in the same way the receptionist had done.

“First time?” he asked with a warm smile.

“Yes.”

“Ever?”

“Yes.” 

“Hm. Come with me.” Davos gestured him into the hall, then into a cozy, dim room with a massage table in the center, covered in a sheet. 

“Take off as much as you’re comfortable with,” Davos said, “then get under the top sheet and I’ll knock before I come back. Okay?”

As much as Stannis was comfortable with would probably mean leaving on his shirt and slacks, if not the tie. “What do you recommend?”

 “I recommend removing everything if you’re all right with it,” Davos said, “it’s easier to get the oil spread around and I don’t have to worry about staining your shorts.” With that, he flashed a quick grin at Stannis again and left the room.

Stannis took a deep breath and began removing his clothing. How would he like it if someone didn’t follow his own professional opinion? In the end, he had stacked everything neatly on the indicated chair, then hurried, almost ashamedly, beneath the folded sheet, lying on his stomach to position his face in the donut-shaped pillow.

A few seconds later, Davos knocked. 

“Come in,” Stannis called, as clearly as he could muffled against the cloth.

He heard Davos popping the lid off the top of a bottle, and his thighs tensed in an instinctive reaction. “Any problem areas? Injuries?” Davos was asking.

“No, but my coworkers said,” Stannis ground his teeth at the memory, “they said my shoulders were tense, or something. That I needed to relax.”

“That’s all they said?”

“What else should they have said?” Stannis bristeld.

“All right. Just let me know if anything is too much.”

 

—

 

As it turned out, “too much” didn’t begin to describe it, but neither did “not enough.” Though his mind kept trying to wriggle toward descriptions, toward any way to process what he was experiencing, the series of sensations Davos was putting him through was so far beyond anything Stannis had experienced that he was left, quite literally, speechless. 

“Okay so far?” Davos had asked once, just after a long, deep, two-handed stroke up Stannis’ back that had ended with both strong hands curving around his shoulderblades. Stannis couldn’t answer — he tried, but his throat, dry and slack, couldn’t form sounds. He was reduced to nodding impotently into the open headrest. 

Stannis thought he could hear Davos chuckle at that. “Good,” was all the masseur said but his voice was as warm as the oil Stannis could feel soaking into his skin. 

This was heaven. Davos skimmed his fingers along Stannis’ ribcage, rubbing in more oil, before spreading his palms out wide and starting again to knead, his hands finding the exact right spot to make Stannis’ muscles unkink and start to loosen. Stannis took a long, satisfied breath in, hummed it out in pleasure, and let his entire body go limp.

Well, mostly limp. There was no denying that he was hard, electrifyingly so. Somewhere he had read that a sexual response was normal during a massage and he kept that fact well-lit and starkly outlined in his mind, compartmentalizing it, pushing the embarrassment away and away until…

“Turn over on your back now, Stannis, please,” Davos said. Stannis froze. Though the word “please” was there, the sentence was a command — a command Stannis could not help but yearn to follow. He didn’t know why. He only knew that he wanted to — and would — do as Davos said, as shameful as it would be. Somehow he managed to do it, his erection brushing painfully against the massage table as he maneuvered himself onto his back. Davos covered his groin with a sheet, which managed to hide exactly nothing, but the older man seemed determined to ignore it with all due professionalism.  

It didn’t take Stannis long to settle back into the silence, broken only by the occasional sound of Davos’ hands rubbing together when he applied more oil to them. He sighed in contentment as Davos stroked the top of his shoulders before running his warm hands down Stannis’ chest and to his abdomen. His eyes were half closed, breathing deep and regular, when suddenly he startled violently. Davos had moved one hand and brushed it over, then began to caress the still-overt bulge under the sheet, gently but with purpose. 

Stannis held his breath to see if Davos would move his hand along, down to his thigh perhaps, but it lingered. This was no mistaken contact. Oh, but it felt good, even with the cool sheet muting the sensation between Davos’ hand and his own aching skin. 

Straining against his desires, Stannis hesitated for longer than he had meant to before propping up awkwardly on his elbows and, brow knitted, wriggling away from Davos’ gentle touch. 

“What— what are you doing?” Stannis spluttered. 

“I’m… this is how I end the session.” 

“The end? This?” His voice sounded plaintive and squeaky to his own ears.

Davos looked at him. “Yeah,” he said. “This is the part where you … you know. You relax.”

“Relax?!”

The older man was looking at Stannis with undisguised confusion.

“I _was_ relaxed,” Stannis went on. “Then you…” He waved his hand, unable to go on. What exactly had he stumbled into here?

“Personal question,” Davos asked, still looking at Stannis in the eyes with no sign of irritation, only honest concern. Stannis let his guard down just an iota. “Since you seem so surprised, I have to ask this. You are … well, that is to say …”

“What?”

Davos blinked. “Are you straight?”

“No,” Stannis said, trying to keep any telltale quiver out of his voice at the casual admission, one he had hardly ever made before, let alone to a complete stranger. “But I hardly see how that’s relevant. This is a professional situation!”

“Missandei told me that you said Sal sent you,” Davos sounded actually perplexed. “I mean, did you not know what that—“

“No! I most certainly did not,” Stannis snapped. “My colleague advised that I ask for Sal, or mention him. That is all they told me.”

“Ah, shit,” Davos said. Stannis stole a look at his face and he looked honestly dejected. “I really am sorry. I mean, everyone who comes in with that password, they’re here for … well…”

“A happy ending,” Stannis said, bitterly. “Is that what it’s called?”

“Yes, well, generally that’s more a hetero term. But yes. Damn, I’m embarrassed. And that doesn’t happen much in this business, I’ll have you know.”

“Yes, well,” Stannis echoed somewhat lamely. 

“I’m really very sorry,” said Davos again. Both men seemed to not be able to stop repeating themselves. “I’ll let you get dressed.” He closed the door.

Stannis took a long breath. Half of him wished he had told Davos to stay and finish the happy ending. After all, that was probably the only happy ending he would ever get in any sense of the term. “Get it together,” he snapped at himself aloud. He stood, dressed somewhat awkwardly, and left the room.

Up front, Missandei was on duty at the desk but Davos was nowhere in sight.

“You enjoy yourself?” she asked. 

“It was fine, thank you. What is the charge?”

“No charge,” she said. “Davos says it is on the house.”

Stannis was horrified. “Oh no, I— can’t accept that.”

“But he says,” she insisted.

“May I at least leave him a tip?”

“Yes, of course. Envelope here,” she produced an empty one, and scrawled “Davos” on its front. Stannis turned away, inserted a hundred-dollar bill, licked it closed and handed it back to Missandei. He left before she could inspect, as he was certain she would, seal and all.

 

—

 

The very last place Stannis expected to find himself three days later was back on the bus, with the neon Popinski’s sign advancing all too fast through the grimy bus window. His stomach was in knots, his palms and undershirt soaked with sweat, his thoughts careening between the worst possible scenario and the best one — whatever that might be. He shouldn’t be here. But he had no other choice.

Stannis bulled his way through the blue door, the bells clanging in indignation, before he could talk himself out of it. There was a different receptionist this time. She had brown hair and there was something not quite right about her nose. Stannis had been expecting Missandei and this threw a wrench into his plans, but nonetheless, he pushed on.

“I’d like to see Davos,” Stannis said, leaning forward to press his point. “If he’s not here, I’ll wait.”

“He’s here, but he’s with a client,” said the receptionist, surprising Stannis with her voice, barely above a timid murmur, but without a trace of an accent. She sounded like she could be from one of the Ohio suburbs. She had wide grey eyes and a sweet expression, but Stannis wondered if she was legal to work at a place like this. Missandei couldn’t have been older than twenty-one, but this girl looked barely eighteen, if that. “He should be winding up soon.”

Stannis winced. He knew what that meant now. “I’ll wait,” he repeated.

He resisted the dual urges to pull out his cell phone — he didn’t need any more mental input right now of any kind — and to flee. He hadn’t changed his return flights, rearranged his meetings that were supposed to happen when he got home, and paid out of his own pocket for another night in a hotel so that he could turn tail and run. But why had he done it? Was it just for an orgasm? Of course not, he argued with himself. He wasn’t that hard up. He could find someone on a dating app or in a bar to give him a hand job and it wouldn’t be nearly as much trouble or as awkward. Maybe it was the massage itself, but again, those could be had in Ohio. The problem was Davos: the crinkles at the corners of the brown eyes, the honesty, the patience. The warm hands, the gentle touch. The leather pants. The peek of chest hair beneath the t-shirt. _Oh, fuck._ Stannis felt his cock stir in anticipation and shifted in his seat. How long would he have to sit here?

A few tortured minutes later, a man exited from the back of the massage studio into the lobby. Before Stannis could register what he was doing, he had looked the person over. Oh no. That was Davos’ last visitor. His face was pinkish but stoic and his hair was slightly mussed. Stannis was surprised at the intensity with which he wanted to stand up and punch the man out. _Don’t be ridiculous,_ he insisted to himself. He picked up a magazine and resolutely looked away until he heard the outer door close. He did not want to have seen that, to know that that guy had just had Davos’ hands all over his body. _It’s a job. That’s all it is. And you’re a customer._

The receptionist ducked back into the hallway, leaving Stannis alone. A minute later, she and Davos emerged together. 

Davos looked rough — like he’d had a hard couple of days. Stannis had certainly had a difficult time of it and wondered if he looked like that too. But what surprised Stannis most was his desire to soothe Davos somehow, to replace the hollow-eyed look with the calm, peaceful, steady one he had seen on his first visit.

“Hi,” Davos said in surprise. “Jeyne let me know you wanted to see me. Is there something I can do for you?” 

Stannis looked between Jeyne and Davos, who were both looking at him expectantly. _Oh,_ he realized. He hadn’t explicitly said he wanted a session. “Hello. I’m sorry, I should have been more clear. I was hoping to book a massage.”

“Can you check if Joyeuse is free now?” Davos asked Jeyne. “Or Amerei will be back after—”

“What?” Stannis interjected. “No, I mean… I wanted to book an appointment with you.”

Davos narrowed his brown eyes.

“I changed my flight,” Stannis said, the words coming out in a confused rush. “I… thought I could try it again.” He felt his cheeks flushing bright red, knowing that Jeyne knew exactly what he meant. 

He wasn’t the only one who was flushed. Davos looked discomfited, hands thrust into his pockets. “Are you sure?”

“Very sure,” Stannis said. “Are you available now?”

Davos sighed heavily. He seemed to be weighing something. “Jeyne, if you can call my three o’clock and ask him to rebook for five…”

“When do you get off work?” Stannis interrupted. This earned him a hard look from Davos, but: “At six.”

“You could ask your three o’clock to rebook for tomorrow.”

Davos shook his head in disbelief. Had Stannis gone too far? He didn’t even know why he had said that.

“I’m sorry,” Stannis began. “I didn’t—”

“Rebook him for tomorrow, then, please.” Davos told Jeyne. Stannis tried, probably unsuccessfully, to hide the fact that his mouth had gaped open. “All right, Stannis. Come on back.”

 

—

 

Davos had hardly spoken during the massage that followed. His strong, supple hands still managed to melt Stannis’ tension for whole minutes at a time, letting him almost forget the intensely awkward scenario. He was here requesting sex, even paying for it. His face flamed but he knew he didn’t regret coming back here. But then Davos seemed on the verge of wrapping up the massage when Stannis started to panic. Would Davos want him to ask outright? Did he want him to beg? Davos stubbornly refused to open the conversation.

“I’m sorry about the other day,” Stannis began. 

Davos was silent for a time.

“Well, so am I,” he finally said. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

“I enjoyed it … what you did.”

“Oh? It didn’t seem that way to me.” 

“It was unexpected. They didn’t tell me what was going to happen.”

Davos looked confused. “They?”

“My colleagues, when they told me to ask for Sal.” 

“That was shitty of them,” Davos agreed.

“I had no idea what that meant and no one told me what was going to happen!”

“Do you always have to know what’s going to happen?”

Stannis wasn’t sure whether to be irritated. “I like to, yes.”

“But do you have to?”

When Stannis didn’t answer, Davos went on. “Because I was more upset than I let on when you freaked out. I don’t know why. It’s been a long time since I felt like a teenager who’s been walked out on at the dance.”

Davos’ face was very red now and Stannis stared at him. “But it’s your job.”

“Yeah, it’s my job. But that doesn’t mean I’m a robot. Sometimes you get someone who comes in and it’s a little different. I know you don’t live here and I know you’re probably married or I don’t know what. But I thought I could give you something you’d remember anyway.”

Stannis’ pulse pounded. “I’m not married. And I did come back.”

Davos gave him a long, long look. “All right,” he said. “Don’t fuck with me again, though. It’s not healthy for my blood pressure at my age. Lie down on your stomach. Since you need to know what’s going to happen, I’ll tell you this much: I’m going to try something different this time.”

Stannis hesitated a moment. He wanted Davos’ hands on his cock, but he obeyed, and in the yielding was a deeper pleasure than even a quick orgasm would have been. Davos began to massage him again, and this time, the warmth was there that he had missed.

Davos focused almost entirely on Stannis’ ass, with quick strokes to his back or the backs of his legs for variation. He spread Stannis’ legs and worked his buttocks and inner thighs with motions that had Stannis trembling. No one had ever touched him like this. 

From somewhere far away, Stannis could hear a series of guttural, staccato moans. _They should have better,_ what was the word? He tried to think of it but couldn’t with Davos’ fingers skating up and down between his thighs, one fingernail almost brushing his perineum. Stannis writhed without knowing it, trying to catch the movement he wanted.  His erection was pushed so hard into the unyielding massage table that any movement was pain, but so was stillness. _Insulation,_ he finally came up with as the sound became closer, and _oh god, that sound is me._  

That one fingertip so close to his most sensitive parts was tormenting him. He pressed his face into the sweaty pillow as Davos relentlessly rubbed small motions between his buttocks. “Please, please, please,” he chanted silently in his head, “more, please, more,” and he found himself pumping his hips in minute, short motions into the table, even that friction torture and pleasure, more than he could ever remember. 

He could hear Davos’ breath coming fast. He imagined he could almost feel it on his skin. Davos’ hands kneaded into the small of his back now while Stannis ground his cock into the sheet; Davos seemed to be driving his motions and Stannis let himself be guided. All he wanted in the world was for Davos to slip one finger back between his legs and electrify all Stannis’ nerves and finally let him come — it was going to happen without Davos ever touching his cock. But Davos was so deliberate and slow, finding places in Stannis’ muscles to knead and rub, that Stannis hovered on the edge between deep relaxation and tingling, rocketing pleasure until he didn’t know where he was anymore. He could hear his own voice in the room, a muffled animal sound into the pillow or in the corners of the ceiling; he could feel his balls swelling and tingling.  

Davos slipped one hand under Stannis’ hip and cupped his cock, not moving, just barely teasing Stannis’ asshole with his other hand. He could feel Davos’ erection, hard and pronounced, pressing against his leg: the idea that the man who was driving him over the edge was aflame too was enough. With one sharp cry of relief and release, Stannis canted his hips up and climaxed all over Davos’ hand. 

Though his head was still spinning and his breath could only come in short gasps, Stannis pushed himself up from the table, surprising Davos, whose face was pink under his beard. “Now you,” he gasped. He wrapped his legs around Davos and reached for the zipper of his tight jeans. Davos seemed to resist for a moment before jerking his zipper the rest of the way down and his pants down his hips, freeing his cock. Stannis was hard again already with his come still sticky on his skin. They ground their groins together, push and pull, and Stannis’ mouth somehow made his way to Davos’ shoulder, elicting a gravelly moan. The friction was hot and electric. Through a haze of desire, Stannis thought he heard Davos say, “Fuck it,” and then Davos’ mouth was on his, open and insistent, and the surprise of the kiss was somehow even more sensuous than the throb between his legs. In an instant Davos was coming and Stannis was not far behind, collapsing against Davos’ shoulder. 

Davos was getting himself cleaned up and dressed by the time Stannis came back to himself. He was lying on the massage table staring up at the ceiling — when had he disentangled himself from the other man? — and Davos was wiping him down gently with a wet cloth. It felt good enough to almost make him hard again until he thought of all the ways this had probably violated Davos’ workplace ethics, not to mention his personal ones.

“I’m sorry,” he said. That was the first thing he had to say. He didn’t know what would come next.

“For what?” Davos said, out of breath still, a lingering grin on his rugged face. 

“Dishonoring you this way. What we did was very likely outside the bounds of our professional agreement.” Damn it, Davos just looked too content. Stannis had hardly had a sexual encounter without shame as the immediate aftermath, so why should this be any different? 

“I see,” said Davos. “You’re upset because I’m on the job, even though I couldn’t have made it clearer that I was into it. Are you a lawyer? Never mind, I’ll find out later. Will it help if I don’t charge you?”

“Oh, I couldn’t—”

“As you insisted out there, I don’t have another appointment until tomorrow,” Davos reminded him. “So I’m free for recompense in any way that will assuage your sense of honor.” There was something about the way Davos drew out those words that sent Stannis’ pulse racing again. How did he do that? Why did he have to live in San Francisco instead of Ohio? Why did he have to touch other men’s cocks for a living? 

“I’ll take you to dinner then,” Stannis said. Davos’ answering smile was worth the risk, he decided. “But on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“We’ll need to discuss career paths.”

“Mine?”

“We’ll start with me. Then you.” 

“That sounds like a plan,” Davos said, wadding up the sheet that had been on the massage table and pitching it into the hamper before shooting Stannis a wicked look, full of promise. “After all, it worked this time, didn’t it?”

 -end-

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a slightly seedy block in San Francisco's Nob Hill district, [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/series/126795) by aunt_zelda, and the knowledge that nothing is too shady for my lovely giftee.
> 
> Thank you to [Sir_Bedevere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere), my tireless beta!


End file.
